Improving Teacher Quality By Paying Teachers More

Just so you know that improving teacher quality isn’t all about things labor unions should hate, McKinsey has a report out (PDF) on “Closing the Talent Gap” which observes that teaching is a relatively higher-paid occupation in other countries:

Some people, I suppose, have the idea that if we just fired some more teachers that they’d be magically replaced with different better teachers and all our problems would be solved. But for my part when I talk about differentiated compensation for teachers, this is what I have in mind. Yes, reduce barriers to getting rid of teachers who do much worse than average. But also offer the best performers substantially more money than teachers currently get. That means the best teachers will keep teaching and also that a wider range of people will consider teaching as a possible career choice.